Growing up, I was fortunate to have a great family involved in Scouting.  Being the youngest of five boys, we were all involved in Scouts.  I look back on Scouting and truly appreciate the self confidence and skills I gained from it.  When I became an Eagle Scout, I had no idea at the time how ingrained Scouting would be in my life.

To this day, I still have the Scout Oath and Scout Law memorized and strive to live by those very words:

Scout Oath

On my honor, I will do my best,

to do my duty, to God and my country and to obey the Scout Law;

To help other people at all times;

To keep myself physically strong, mentally awake and morally straight.

Scout Law

A Scout is:

Trustworthy, Loyal, Helpful, Friendly, Courteous, Kind, Obedient, Cheerful, Thrifty, Brave, Clean and Reverent.

There are many institutions in America who have been under fire from the left for years.  Scouting is one of them.  The various Scouting organizations have done many things to help communities in the past and are also involved in giving aid to Haiti currently.  If you know of someone in Scouting, please let them know you support what they do to help all communities.

Ever wonder what the Universal Service Charge on your cell phone is used for?  This is an interesting tidbit on how much money is brought in on this program.

The program, which is paid for through a tax on all home phones and cell phones known as the Universal Service Charge, is expected to exceed $1 billion this year, according to Erik Iversen, spokesman for the Universal Service Fund, the quasi-governmental agency set up to administer the program.

That’s up almost 20 percent over last year. And in some markets, the number receiving this benefit is exploding, up 600 percent in New Hampshire and up 900 percent in New Jersey in just two months, according to government figures.

The reason for the uptick this past year is mainly because of Trac-Phone.

Growth was slow until TracFone, a company out of Miami, figured out a way to use the $120-a-year government subsidy to provide a free phone and 60 minutes of free monthly service. Heavily promoted on television, the SafeLink program is a hit with eligible Americans.

Ah, now you want to know, what constitutes who is an eligible American?

Qualification for the subsidy is dependent on income. However, if a person is already enrolled in any of the popular federal welfare programs such as Medicaid, food stamps, low income housing, or the free school lunch, they are automatically eligible for a free cell phone. The cell phones are invaluable to many people trying to get contract or short-term work who do not have a phone number in their homes.

So there must be some kind of agency keeping tabs on ensuring that there is a limitation to fraud.

What concerns critics most is fraud. The program is supposed to be “self-verifying” — that is, as long as a person claims they qualify for the subsidy, no government agency is auditing or enforcing the subscriber rolls.

“We are focused on the carrier and making sure the carriers are submitting the proper information to us,” says Laura Bettencourt, an administrator of the Universal Service Fund. “We are not focused on the subscriber.”

Ah, I get it.  Because it is not your money, and you are not really responsible for it, then you are just moving things around to help everyone get something for free who says they need it.

Glad to see where the fees are going.  Oh, and by the way, this will only get worse as we continue to have kids addicted to having such services as well.

Today Homeland Secretary Janet Napolitano ratcheted up her language on terrorists within the borders of the U.S.:

Napolitano cited the case of Najibullah Zazi, the Denver airport shuttle bus driver who was arrested in September after allegedly training in Pakistan. Zazi, an American resident who was in court Thursday as more charges were considered, is part of a growing body of evidence that Americans are being radicalized.

Ah, so only these arrests constitute the ratcheting up of her language.  What about the attack at Fort Hood?  Does that not also constitute her references of what is causing this to happen?  She is quoted in the same article stating:

“We are seeing increasing links between Al Qaeda and these citizens for purposes of planning terrorist attacks,” she said.

So what has happened this past week to make her decide to come out and state this?  Oh yes, the President’s speech to increase the troop levels in Afghanistan.

A few days ago I blogged about how people are not realizing the costs they will incur if they buy into the Cash for Clunkers program here.

Well, now, people are going to realize one more cost from the program, the rebate from the government is taxable!  See here.

So much hope, no change left in your pocket…

Bloomberg reports today that U.S. retail sales dropped in July amidst a boost in the cash-for-clunkers incentive program put forth by the federal government. Read here:

Today’s report underscores the threat to spending from the continued deterioration in the job market; a separate government report today showed more Americans than forecast filed claims for unemployment insurance last week. Retailers such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Macy’s Inc. are cutting costs and inventories to bolster profits as households cut back on non-essential items.

Plain and simple, significant job losses are still out there in the marketplace.  Everyone is feeling the pinch and with that, who wants to take on the additional burden of a new car?  Granted, there are some clunkers being traded in, however, if you have a working vehicle what are you really saving by purchasing a new one?  Does the incentive help pay for your new taxes on the vehicle?  Does it help with added insurance you now will have to pay if you were only needing deductible coverage before?  Are you really saving that much in gas money with the new car?  Plain and simple, if you have a working vehicle, people are not incentivized to purchase a new vehicle with all these other additional costs as most people would deem them non-essential.

Therefore, the government just invested $1B of our tax-payers money (or was it money borrowed from the Chinese government and then we the tax payers will have to pay it back with interest which will amount to more than the original $1B) into a short-term incentive plan which did not help with the retail industry.  So what is their solution to this?  Just add another $2B to the program!  And what will happen when that money runs out and also does not help meet the retail numbers for August?  Well, let’s just see how the spin doctors will work their magic on this.  The most important thing is that once the money runs out on this program, it is gone.

For Universal Healthcare, I am afraid that there would be a big push to have so many people forced into a system that would not be able to sustain it.  One of the big questions on this HealthCare plan is not a matter of if they run out of money but when.

Hat Tip: Thomas Lifson – American Thinker

Since President Obama’s presser the other night about healthcare, the main story to come from it was about the incident between the Cambridge police and Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates.  There is one particular line which the President cracks a joke about trying to break into his ‘new’ house and he would be shot for it.

“I guess this is my house now,” he remarked of the White House. “Here I’d get shot.”

So in order to crack a joke, he is going to make fun of the Secret Service.  The dedicated men and women of the Secret Service put their lives on the line every day to protect those whom they are tasked with protecting.  To say that these men and women who go through extensive training would make the mistake of shooting him is beyond absurd; it is rude, condescending and utterly disrespectful. 

Every minute of each day, let’s say several agents of the Secret Service know where exactly the president is. 

As to the Cambridge incident, there is the saying that hindsight is 20/20.  Well, the president didn’t have all the facts, he stated it in his answer:

“I don’t know – not having been there and not seeing all the facts – what role race played in that, but I think it’s fair to say, number one, any of us would be pretty angry; number two that he Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home,” Obama said in response to a question from the Chicago Sun-Times’s Lynn Sweet. 

OK, so before he knows all the facts, he has made up his mind that his friend was in the right.  But what charges were brought up against Mr Gates was not that he was burglarizing his own home, but that he was being charged with disorderly conduct, which now the charges have been dropped. 

From this the president is putting his personal friends and local law enforcement in an potentially precarious situation.  If you are a close, personal friend of the president and your home, family or property is being robbed, then how should law enforcement react?  Will they now have to hesitate because of a backlash from the president himself before he gathers the facts and could ruin the careers of good policemen/women?  Simply put, damned if you do and damned if you don’t…

As I was flipping through the channels on the TV attempting to avoid the Jack-O-A-Thon, the Disney channel was promoting their new project called Friends for Change.  Basically this is a project to get kids signed up to do their part to save the environment.  Such projects, called Pledges, are simple common sense items.  Items include conservation of water for dishes and laundry, thermostat adjustments and reusable grocery bags.  For each of these pledges kids are encouraged to help get their friends signed onto it to get more people thinking green.  There are other parts of this site I have not viewed yet however one part was interesting, especially in it’s wording.

Under each of the project tabs there is a fun fact.  Interesting for the Waste tab the fun fact states:

www.disney.com/friendsforchange

Fun Fact: In March 2002, plastic bags in Ireland started to be taxed at 15 cents a bag.  (So each time you choose to take a bag any store, you have to pay 15 cents on top of your purchase.)  Now plastic bag use has gone down there by 95 percent!

So what is Disney telling kids?  If you don’t choose to do the right thing you will be taxed to force you to make the right decision?  Not in so many words.  It is worded to make kids understand that we need taxes to help save the environment.  Crikey, without that bag tax we would have all that bag waste!

I just went to see the new Transformers movie and in the first hour there is a scene where a CNN anchorperson mentions that the POTUS is being escorted to an underground bunker.  Usually Hollywood directors make up a ficticious POTUS for their movies, however, in the new Transformers movie they specifically name President Obama.  I thought this was rather interesting as to why they would specifically mention a real POTUS.  This is the only time he is mentioned in the movie and I find it rather humorous that the only time he is mentioned is when he is escorted to an underground bunker whilst the military and ‘everyday people’ are left to deal with the threats of the movie.

Here is a clip of Jerry Bruckheimer’s reasoning behind the mention of President Obama in the movie:

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/thedishrag/2009/06/-barack-obama-calls-transformer-2-director-michael-bay-a-big-a-director.html

So what exactly is Mr Bruckheimer trying to say about Obama?  He was impressed with him in the Vegas airport so he wanted to mention him in his movie by name being escorted to an underground bunker and … that’s it? 

Ah, but there is more.  In the movie, the National Security Advisor gets on the wrong side of the military personnel trying to save the day and he is under direct orders by POTUS.  So is Mr Bruckheimer saying that specifically President Obama, being mentioned by name in the movie, will appoint people to be on the wrong side of a confrontation with the military and not allow them to do their job?

All in all, the movie was a little long and there was a bit of swearing and sexual connotations that could have been toned down or simply left out.

The Chrysler Breakdown:

The following article in the Wall Street Journal has some very interesting points:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124087751929461535.html#printMode

UAW will own 55%

Fiat will own 35%

US Taxpayers 10%

GM Breakdown:

The following article in the national review has more interesting information:

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=N2U2YTYyZTdhODc4NTEzMjcyYWJmNWExYzcwYTlmNmM=

UAW will get 40% of stock for their $10B

bondholders will get 10% of stock for their $27B

US Taxpayers will end up with the remaining 50% of common stock

I am not sure of the math being applied here, but when it comes time for me to begin paying more taxes, will that money suddenly appear from nowhere?  These numbers appear to consistently changing.

If Hollywood really wanted us to go Green, then they would not want us to turn on our TVs and computers to watch their shows, movies and commercials as this utilizes more electricity.  They would not want us to purchase magazines and newspapers with all their latest pictures and commentary in them. 

If we really did cut back on these things, then Hollywood would no longer be popular.  Therefore, does Hollywood really want us to go Green?  Hollywood reaps the rewards of their popularity by us consuming these goods.  Purchasing these goods feeds their egos and their wallets.

It truly is a sad day when a hero who has given so much to his country has to continue through more angst when at home.  Marcus Luttrell is an American Hero for what took place in the mountains of the Hindu Kush of Afghanistan. 

In memory of his fellow SEALs who lost their lives that day, Mr Luttrell was given a dog which he named DASY (one letter symbolizing each fallen brother). 

I cannot even begin to realize the pain which is being felt by Mr Luttrell after seeing his dog be gunned down by some punks out for a joy ride at 1AM.  When he confronted these bastions, they turned tail and ran.  So Mr Luttrell got into his truck and followed the kids through 4 counties until he ran them off the road. 

When the Texas Rangers showed up they could see Mr Luttrell keeping the kids subdued with his gun on them.  Now these punks didn’t keep their mouths shut, even when being escorted to the police cars via the Texas Rangers they decided to rant to Mr Luttrell that he was going to be next when they got out of jail. 

The calm demeanor of Mr Luttrell goes beyond comprehension.  He asked the Ranger if he knew who he was, and of course the Ranger said, ‘Yes Mr. Luttrell’.  At that Mr Luttrell asked the Ranger to help educate the kids on who he was and that they are real lucky to be alive.

Here is a link to the story by Glenn Beck.  Mr Luttrell is going to be on his show tonight.  Mr Beck is also going to show pictures of the punks.  http://www.glennbeck.com/content/articles/article/198/23658/

There are many people who pray for our troops, not just when they are away, but when they come home as well.  Let us take this as a reminder of how much our troops continue to face and yet they still remain ever civil, and how we can continue to learn from our great soldiers.